The Guardian took a break during the Brit Awards on Wednesday, so I left Will Butler in the middle of the week, but since, the very prolific guy has released three more songs…
‘You Must be Kidding’, released on Thursday, is about the water crisis in Sao Paulo and Will takes the opportunity for remembeingr about his visit over there:
‘On this latest Arcade Fire tour I got to spend a couple of days in São Paulo. It was my first quality time spent in the city, and I loved it. Musician friends of friends showed us around. There’s a bonkers energy and, like most cities I love, a mind-bending blend of cultures. It was exhausting, mostly in a good way. I can’t wait to go back.
The first time I went to São Paulo I was jet-lagged and relatively inexperienced with traveling. It was on the Funeral tour. I think we spent a day and a half in town, most of it inside the hotel which was behind a high fence with razor wire and armed guards outside. It was a weird, intense scene, that hotel.
I bet that hotel will figure out a way to get water no matter how low the supply gets.’
The song, with rhythmic guitar and dynamic electronics is sung with an anxious tremolo in the falsetto, and a sort of urgency (water crisis oblige) but it gets a bit weird toward the end with a funny high-pitched haaaa-ha-ha-ha-haaaa-ha-ha-ha line that may drive a few people crazy, I found it amusing and catchy.
For his fourth song, I thought it had finally fell for the gossip section with ‘Madonna Can’t Save Me Now’, but no, the song is not about Madonna’s fall at the Awards, it is about the recent discovery a super massive and very old black hole which is 12 billion times the size of the sun. Does this keep you awake at night Will? I thought Muse had already covered the whole black hole thing… anyway, this is what Will had to say:
‘I had every intention of writing about the Brit Awards. It was a news event I was sure the Guardian would cover. I was pretty confident in Sam Smith and Taylor Swift. I could cheat a bit, prepare a couple zingers in advance.
But they just found a black hole 12bn times the mass of the sun and almost as old as the universe itself, so, whatever.
I’m not terrified we’re going to get sucked into a black hole. I’m terrified that all of human art is only 50,000 years old and that nothing anything any of us do will ever matter. jk lol Bwahahahhahahahhaha.’
We are all doomed anyway so why does something so far away matter? But I was right, this song is really about Madonna, and it’s a pretty song, almost starting like a sweet lullaby with tons of vocal harmonies and a pretty melody, mid Arcade Fire, mid David Byrne.
And his final song is a very desolated and melancholic piano song inspired by the ransacking of the museum in Mosul by Isis. Once again Will explains:
‘The words to today’s song are taken from Psalm 137. It’s a song of sorrow and rage from the mouth of a refugee whose city has been destroyed. The sorrow portion of the psalm is extremely famous and often quoted – ”How can we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?” The rage portion of the psalm is less often brought up – “O daughter of Babylon … happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth they little ones against the stones.”
I can’t imagine the sorrow and rage of the people whose lands have been overrun by Isis, whose family and friends are murdered, whose culture is being destroyed.
This song is not a policy prescription. The last lines should evoke horror. But the emotions behind the words are ancient and real.
Mosul is a part of our heritage, part of the world’s heritage, and the loss of its history is heartbreaking.’
It’s a beautiful song, translating this heartbreak with a subtle melody and sparse vocals. I am ready to say that the whole experience was a success, and if you want to save Butler’s complete musical adventure with the Guardian, you can download the five songs here.
